While Latin America's headlines in recent weeks have focused on the turmoil in Chile, Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela, perhaps the most troubling news for the region in the long term are new statistics showing Latin America's shocking educational backwardness.
The newly-released PISA test scores of students in 79 countries and regions around the world show that most Latin American nations ranked in the lower half or near the bottom of the list. And judging from what's happening in Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, in Mexico and Argentina, I'm afraid that Latin America's education levels will fall further in the near future.
The standardized PISA test, carried out every three years, tests 15-year-old students in reading, math and science.
As in previous years, China's students got the highest scores, followed by those from Singapore, Estonia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, South Korea, Poland, Sweden, New Zealand and the United States.
In China's case, the PISA test was only taken by students in Beijing, Shanghai and other two relatively wealthy areas. Chinese officials concede that if it had been taken all over the country, including in rural areas, the overall scores would have been lower.
The highest-ranking Latin American and Caribbean countries in the PISA test were Chile, which ranked No. 43, Uruguay (48) and Costa Rica (49). Further down the list are Mexico (53), Brazil (57), Colombia (58), Argentina (63), Peru (64), Panama (71) and the Dominican Republic (76).
Shamefully, neither Cuba nor Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicaragua dared to participate in the test. That raises serious questions about the Cuban government's claim that the island has an above-average education system.
Ironically, some countries that scored poorly in the PISA test, such as Panama and the Dominican Republic, should be applauded for taking part. Countries need a clear diagnostic of their students' academic performance in order to improve their education levels.
Why do I fear a continued deterioration of Latin America's education standards? Among other things, because Mexico's populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has abolished an education reform that included teacher evaluations by an independent agency and put limits to the power of corrupt teachers' unions.
Furthermore, while China, South Korea and most high-performing Asian countries have stringent college admissions exams, Lopez Obrador has proposed to eliminate tertiary education admissions' tests, including in medical schools.
In Argentina, the incoming government of President-elect Alberto Fernandez and Vice President-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner _ a former president who will have formidable powers in the new administration _ have a history of carrying out populist education policies.
In 2015, during Cristina Fernandez's previous government, the global PISA test organizers excluded Argentina from their final report after widespread allegations that the country had cheated in the exam.
In Venezuela, there is an educational debacle going on that will take generations to redress. About 78% of students have dropped out of public schools, among other things because of student migration and absence of teachers, according to a study by the Fundaredes nongovernment group.
It's no mystery that Asian students are topping the PISA test scores. Chinese students spend 55 hours a week studying _ almost twice the average in many Latin American countries.
As I witnessed in several trips to China and other Asian countries, Asian families invest most of their time and money on their children's education. I visited several after-school private institutes in Beijing, where students were taking English and math classes at 9 p.m.
In Latin America, many politicians and academics scoff at Asian countries' educational achievements, claiming that Asian countries' test-centered education systems produce stress in students and drive some to commit suicide. But, while there should be limits to pressures on students, that's a poor excuse for educational backwardness.
The most successful countries in the world are those with high student performance demands. We live in a global knowledge economy, where mental work is increasingly rewarded and manual work is increasingly worthless, as robots perform growing numbers of tasks in factories, agriculture, and service industries.
Unless Latin American countries put quality education at the top of their political agenda _ as Asian countries have done _ I'm afraid the region will become even poorer and more unequal than now. That should be the biggest lesson of the latest PISA tests.
